The Coracle Files (5)

At last I thought, I've got all I need to start work! .....

	Putting the six legs onto the 3ft. long seat didn't tax my carpentry skills too much. Okay, so they're not all quite at right angles, but well, you don't notice it too much! I added a couple of bits of 2 x 1 to the ends of the seat as well, to help support the gunwhale, as the seat is somewhat smaller than the size recommended by Graham Fisher.
The seat with wonky legs and gunwale!

Then I had to pick out the two best looking laths I could find, to make the critical fore and aft gunwale sections, the fore-section being a bit longer than the aft.

Being nice and wet from the paddling pool, they seemed to bend quite easily, so I pulled them round into position, nailed them to the seat ends, and then fixed the whole lot in position, with some big nails as guides, onto a 4' x 8' sheet of tatty old chipboard. Again, this wasn't as recommended; MDF was prescribed, but I didn't have any and Do-It-All-Except-Coracle's prices for MDF seemed rather high for what was supposed to be a low-cost boat.

Keeping the laths wet

Then the three major lengthwise laths, picked from the 10ft. lengths, and the first two crosswise laths (7ft.) were screwed to the protuding legs, approximately at right angles.

After inverting the whole thing and fixing the flat parts of the floor laths to the chipboard with scrap bits, I started trying to bend the laths up the sharpish 90 degree curve to meet the gunwale.

I knew that heat was reputed to help here, so I got out my trusty Black & Decker Paint-Stripping-Hot-Air-Gun-Set-Fire-To-Everything- If-You're-Not-Careful thingy, thinking that, as the wood was nice and soggy, it would be like steaming it.

WRONG!

It dried the lath out in a matter of seconds, and would probably have set fire to it if I hadn't realised the error of my ways. So, the trusty Russell Hobbs electric kettle was pressed into DIY service for a change. That seemed to work much better.

The long laths bent up beautifully. Clamped in place first, then nailed with my imitation gimps, all seemed to be going quite well.

Next for the shorter side laths -

lots of hot water;

gentle pressure;

a bit more water;

bend it a bit further ....

CRRRACK-BANG!

Oops, must have been a bit impatient. Un-nail it all, turn it over, unscrew the laths, screw a new one back on, turn it back over again, nail it down again, boil up another kettle, try again.
	The problem laths ringed: left - broken, right - weak

CRRRACK-BANG!

B****R !!!! I thought I had the hang of this, the long ones were okay?

Try a third?

Success! Quick nail it to the gunwale while it's still in one piece.

Now for the other crosswise lath ....

CRRRACK-BANG!

This is getting boring I thought - the ash forests of Gloucestershire are going to be well depleted by the time this little coracle's finished!

Maybe there's a problem here somewhere? ........